Justin Gordon

Justin has been passionately writing software since 1985, focusing on Java since 1996 at several startups and with Ruby on Rails since 2011. You can find more about me at: http://www.railsonmaui.com/about/

Expert Skills

Ruby on Rails

Ruby

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Posts

September 30th 2014

WebPack and ES6: A Better Way of Incorporating JavaScript Ecosystem into Rails

There has to be a better way to incorporate the JavaScript ecosystem into Rails.
Have you:
Wondered if there’s a better way to utilize modern JavaScript client frameworks the context of an existing Ruby on Rails project?
Gotten confused about how to integrate JavaScript libraries and examples t...(read more)

September 8th 2014

Fast Tests: Comparing Zeus With Spring on Rails 4.1 and RSpec 3

What’s faster? Zeus with Parallel Tests or Spring, in the context of Rails 4.1, RSpec 3, Capybara 2.4, and PhantomJs
The bottom line is that both work almost equivalently as fast, and the biggest difference for me concerned compatibility with the parallel_tests gem. Zeus works fine with Parallel ...(read more)

July 22nd 2014

React on Rails Tutorial

In response to a recent client request for a richer browser side UI experience, I took a fresh look at all the recent advances in JavaScript rich client frameworks. The React library stood out as unique, innovative, and impressive.
The main reasons that I like React are:
It’s a better abstractio...(read more)

October 21st 2014

Ruby on Enums, Queries and Rails 4.1

Sometimes when you get puzzled by what Rails is doing, you really ought to understand what Ruby is doing. For example, take this simple code to get an attribute value:
# return value of some_attribute and foobar
def some_attribute_foobar
"#{some_attribute} and foobar"
end
Beginners are often s...(read more)

September 12th 2014

Tips and Strategies for Upgrading Ruby Gems

What are the best-practices for upgrading gems to newer versions? What sort of tips and techniques can save time and headaches?
I built this guide based on my real-world experiences over years of gem migrations, including a recent upgrade to Rails 4.1, RSpec 3.0, and Twitter Bootstrap 3.
Why Upda...(read more)